1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mall server which provides a virtual shopping mall on a network, and more particularly, to a mall server which classifies online products into a plurality of categories to help consumers to search for the desired products.
2. Description of the Related Art
The recent advancement in data communications technologies have allowed general consumers to enjoy various services over a wide area network such as the Internet. The network-based virtual shopping mall is one of such new services realized by applying today's latest network technologies. In actuality, consumers can purchase a variety of products by making access to their favorite online shopping malls from home, without making a trip to any "physical" stores.
Functions of such a virtual shopping mall are provided by a server computer called a mall server. When a customer make access to this mall server through the Internet, a list of the products sold in the shopping mall will be first presented to him/her. To aid him/her to find the desired products, the mall server offers product search functions, where product categories can be specified as search keys.
FIG. 10 shows a typical product search screen provided by a conventional mall server. This product search screen 60, when opened by a customer, presents a list of product categories, where several categories such as "Fashion," "Gourmet," "Hobby," "Holiday Season," and "Gifts" are listed as available search keys. From this list, the customer selects one category that may include what he/she desires to buy. Products that fall under the selected category are then displayed on the screen of customer's terminal. The customer browses them and places a purchase order of the desired product, if any, by simply clicking an item displayed on the screen.
As described above, the product search function with a category search capability is a powerful tool for the customers to find and order the desired products over the network.
However, conventional category search functions show all categories registered therein, regardless of the seasons. Accordingly, they sometimes supply the customers with some inappropriate categories which are apparently out of season, and such unnecessary categories disturb the customer's selection of target categories. Take the category of "Holiday Season" for instance. This is a typical category having a seasonal nature; i.e., the consumer's demands specific to this category are concentrated within a few weeks before Christmas Day.
As explained above, conventional search screens show any seasonal categories possibly including invalid ones, the presence of which makes other valid categories less distinguishable. This results in difficulty for the customers to find the desired category.
Further, the merchants participating in a virtual shopping mall are responsible to maintain their product databases so that no out-of-season products be presented in the search results, since such information will only throw the customers into confusion. Such database maintenance requires timely registration of new products and immediate deletion of old products in accordance with the turning of the seasons, thus imposing heavy workloads to those who operate the virtual stores.